Promotion of creativity (divergent productions) and convergent productions by systematic-relaxation exercises: empirical evidence from five experimental studies with children, young adults, and elderly
✍ Scribed by Günter Krampen
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1997
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 179 KB
- Volume
- 11
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0890-2070
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Presented are the results of five experimental studies on the effects of systematicrelaxation exercises on divergent as well as convergent performance. Subjects were 40 elementary school children, 120 college students, and 52 elderly. In Experiments 1, 2, 4, and 5, subjects were assigned at random to either an experimental group (participating in a short systematic-relaxation exercise without pre-experience or exercising autogenic training which subjects had learned at least 6 months before) or to a control group (with unspecific relaxation instructions). In Experiment 3, subjects with against without experience of autogenic training were matched for age, gender, years of study, and creativity pretest scores. Before and after systematic against unsystematic relaxation, subjects were tested for divergent performances (word fluency, associational fluency, expressional fluency, and ideational fluency) and convergent performances (short-term memory, concentration, and general intelligence). Results of all experiments consistently show significant improvements of divergent andÐto a lesser extentÐconvergent performances in the experimental groups after systematicrelaxation exercises. These short-term effects of systematic-relaxation exercises are discussed with respect to characteristics and problems of divergent problem solving processes in individuals and groups.